I’m Scott Brown, I’m from Wrentham, and I drive a truck!

DJH: There is so much to say (and so much will be said) about this election, it’s hard to begin. Scott Brown really nailed the national sentiment that is the heart and soul of “Who Stole My Career?” Whether you live in Massachusetts or Texas, you know — YOU SIMPLY KNOW, that Team Obama’s agenda is bad for regular Americans. Scott Brown won by exposing their agenda as one that panders to a handful of liberal fringe groups and not only doesn’t give a damn about regular Americans, but openly targets them to pick up the tab for paying off their favorite special interest groups.

Just look at who Team Obama panders too:
1. Labor Unions — The exclusive beneficiary of the Stimulus money, and the “Cadillac Plan Carve Out, “yet only 7% of private sector workers
2. Trail Lawyers — The single biggest cost driver in American Health Care and the biggest contributor to dem campaign coffers, yet no Tort Reform in Obamacare.
3. ACLU — Brown’s best line of the night “the American people want to spend money killing terrorists, not on their lawyers.

And the unifying theme thats ties all of this together — Brown hammered home that regular Americans want to see taxes go down, deficits go down, and less government — not more. Oh yeah, they have zero tolerance for dirty back room politics; they want to see things happen on C-SPAN.

If the GOP can learn from this election and serve up more Scott Browns in November, hope is truly on the way.

Yes we can!

Dave

NEWS ANALYSIS

Voter anger caught fire in final days

Voter anxiety and resentment, building for months in a troubled economy, exploded like a match on dry kindling in the final days of the special election for US Senate. In arguably the most liberal state in the nation, a Republican – and a conservative one at that – won and will crash the Bay State’s all-Democratic delegation with a mandate to kill the health care overhaul pending in Congress.

Liberals will claim Coakley was a bad cadidate -- I think not!

It is difficult to overstate the significance of Scott Brown’s victory because so much was at stake. From the agenda of President Obama and the legacy of the late Edward M. Kennedy to a referendum on the Democratic monopolies of power on Capitol and Beacon hills, voters in a lopsidedly Democratic state flooded the polls on a dreary winter day to turn conventional wisdom on its head.

Brown, an obscure state senator with an unremarkable record when he entered the race four months ago, was a household name across the country by the end of the abbrevi ated campaign. Running a vigorous, smart, and error-free campaign, he became a vessel into which cranky and worried voters poured their frustrations and fears, ending the Democrats’ grip on a Senate seat the party has held for 58 years, nearly all by two brothers named Kennedy.

Voters were demonstrably unsentimental about keeping alive the spirit of the late Ted Kennedy in electing the next senator. His widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, tried to bolster the sagging candidacy of Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley in the closing days, to little effect.

Brown’s upset triumph is certain to send shockwaves well beyond the state’s borders and into the fall midterm elections, and will rattle Beacon Hill, where Democrats have absolute power and Governor Deval Patrick is an unpopular incumbent as he faces reelection this November.

To be sure, Brown was the beneficiary of the blundering campaign of his opponent, Coakley, who blew a 31-point lead in two months, according to one poll. But in electing Brown, a large segment of the electorate declared that there is little appetite for near-universal national health care, the chief domestic policy initiative of Obama, who carried the state by 26 percentage points only 14 months ago.

Brown skillfully made the election a referendum on the issue, nationalizing the race when he repeatedly said he would be the 41st vote in the Senate, enough for the GOP to block the Democrats’ bill. Money poured in from around the country. His campaign had an initial budget of $1.2 million but eventually spent $13 million, about $12 million of which came in via the Internet, a campaign official said last night.

Massachusetts passed its own expensive prototype version of universal health care in 2006 and Brown argued that a national version would come at the Bay State’s expense. Obama’s appearance on the stump in Boston Sunday to prop up Coakley had no apparent effect on the outcome.

The tinderbox climate in the state was so hospitable that when Brown declared his support for waterboarding – simulated drowning used in interrogating terrorist suspects – Coakley and liberal Democrats barely protested.

In winning, Brown withstood the most blistering assault of late attack ads the state has ever seen. As Coakley began to collapse, her campaign, Democratic Party committees, outside organized labor, and environmental and abortion rights groups bankrolled a desperate multimillion-dollar carpet bombing ad campaign in an effort to halt Brown’s surge. It backfired. The ads, some of which distorted Brown’s record, created a blowback that scorched the Democrat. Coakley entered the campaign as a well-liked politician and ended with high negative poll ratings. She will probably face withering recriminations in Democratic circles, and her weakened status could produce a challenger to her reelection in the fall.

Coakley becomes the state’s fifth sitting or former Democratic attorney general to lose a bid for higher office, following Robert H. Quinn (1974), Francis X. Bellotti (1990), L. Scott Harshbarger (1998), and Thomas F. Reilly (2006), all of whom lost races for governor.

The unflinching Brown had much more experience in tough partisan elections than Coakley, and it showed in this campaign. In 2004, the Republican won a close special election and November rematch to capture and then hold his state Senate seat. Coakley, by contrast, won the offices of attorney general and Middlesex district attorney over token Republican opponents.

Brown’s chief consultants were battle-tested not only in bruising state elections but also at the national level. Eric Fehrnstrom, Beth Myers, and Peter Flaherty, all principals of The Shawmut Group, were veterans of Mitt Romney’s 2002 gubernatorial and 2008 presidential campaigns. They provided strategic advice, developed the communications plan, and created Brown’s distinctive and highly effective television advertisements.

When he joined the race, Brown figured that even if he lost, it would raise his profile for a future run for statewide office. In winning a low-profile GOP primary, he doggedly roamed the state in his GMC truck, made famous in a later TV ad. But his campaign, with no budget for polling, was flying blind. In mid-December, however, the National Republican Senatorial Committee conducted a poll that showed Brown trailing Coakley by only 13 points but in a dead heat among those voters with the most intense interest in the race. The poll showed potential for his candidacy to catch fire.

After Christmas, the Brown campaign aired an ad beginning with black-and-white footage of John F. Kennedy extolling the value of tax cuts and then morphing into Brown completing the speech. It was risky and ridiculed by some Democrats, but it generated plenty of attention, and Coakley’s campaign did not answer with a spot of its own during its five-day run.

There was still no response when Brown’s next ad aired, featuring him cruising the state in his pickup truck. It created a sharp contrast with Coakley, whose campaign was still off the airwaves while the candidate remained almost invisible with her run-out-the-clock strategy.

Brown worked the talk radio circuit relentlessly to raise his profile.

By the time public polls in early January showed the race to be competitive and then tightening, money was gushing in for Brown, as were volunteers, some from out of state.

In the final days, his events became bigger and more boisterous, fueling support that would turn the political world upside down.